The literal meaning of Königsberg is 'King’s Mountain'. In the local Low German dialect, spoken by many of its German former inhabitants, the name was Kenigsbarg (pronounced[ˈkʰeːnɪçsbarç]). Further names included Russian: Кёнигсберг, Королевец, tr.Kyonigsberg, Korolevets, Old Prussian: Kunnegsgarbs, Knigsberg, Lithuanian: Karaliaučius, Polish: Królewiec, and Czech: Královec.

Between the thirteenth and the twentieth centuries, the inhabitants spoke predominantly German[citation needed], but the multicultural city also had a profound influence on the Lithuanian and Polish cultures.[2] The city was a publishing centre of Lutheran literature, including the first Polish translation of the New Testament, printed in the city in 1551, the first book in Lithuanian language and the first Lutheran catechism, both printed in Königsberg in 1547.

Königsberg was the easternmost large city in Germany until World War II. The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during the Battle of Königsberg in 1945; it was then captured and occupied by the Soviet Union on 9 April 1945. Its German population was expelled, and the city was repopulated with Russians and others from the Soviet Union. Briefly Russified as Kyonigsberg (Кёнигсберг), it was renamed "Kaliningrad" in 1946 in honour of Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it became the only notable Russian city named after a Bolshevik. It is now the capital of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, an exclave bordered in the north by Lithuania and in the south by Poland.

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Königsberg was preceded by a Sambian, or Old Prussian, fort known as Twangste (Tuwangste, Tvankste), meaning Oak Forest,[4] as well as several Old Prussian settlements, including the fishing village and port Lipnick, and the farming villages Sakkeim and Trakkeim.

The Teutonic Order used Königsberg to fortify their conquests in Samland and as a base for campaigns against pagan Lithuania. Under siege during the Prussian uprisings in 1262–63, Königsberg Castle was relieved by the Master of the Livonian Order.[8][9] Because the initial northwestern settlement was destroyed by the Prussians during the rebellion, rebuilding occurred in the southern valley between the castle hill and the Pregel River. This new settlement, Altstadt, received Culm rights in 1286. Löbenicht, a new town directly east of Altstadt between the Pregel and the Schlossteich, received its own rights in 1300. Medieval Königsberg's third town was Kneiphof, which received town rights in 1327 and was located on an island of the same name in the Pregel south of Altstadt.

While the Prussian estates quickly allied with the duke, the Prussian peasantry would only swear allegiance to Albert in person at Königsberg, seeking the duke's support against oppressive nobility. After convincing the rebels to lay down their arms, Albert had several of their leaders executed.[19]

Königsberg, the capital, became one of the biggest cities and ports of ducal Prussia, having considerable autonomy, a separate parliament and currency. While German served as the fief's official language, the city served as a vibrant center of publishing in both the Polish and Lithuanian Languages. The city flourished through the export of wheat, timber, hemp, and furs,[20] as well as pitch, tar, and ash.[21] Königsberg was one of the few Baltic ports regularly visited by more than one hundred ships annually in the latter 16th century, along with Danzig and Riga.[22] The University of Königsberg, founded by Albert in 1544 and receiving the royal privilege from King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland in 1560, became a centre of Protestant teaching. The university had a profound impact on the development of Lithuanian culture, and several important Lithuanian writers attended the Albertina. The university was also the preferred educational institution of the Baltic German nobility.

In 1661 Frederick William informed the Prussian diet that he possessed jus supremi et absoluti domini, and that the Prussian Landtag could convene with his permission.[24] The Königsberg burghers, led by Hieronymus Roth of Kneiphof, opposed "the Great Elector's" absolutist claims, and actively rejected the Treaties of Wehlau and Oliva, seeing Prussia as "indisputably contained within the territory of the Polish Crown".[25] Delegations from the city's burghers went to the Polish king, Jan Kazimierz, who initially promised aid, but then failed to follow through.[25] The townspeople attacked the elector's troops while local Lutheran priests held masses for the Polish king and for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[25] However, Frederick William succeeded in imposing his authority after arriving with 3,000 troops in October 1662 and training his artillery on the town.[25] Refusing to request mercy, Roth went to prison in Peitz until his death in 1678.[24]

The Prussian estates which swore fealty to Frederick William in Königsberg on 18 October 1663[26] refused the elector's requests for military funding, and Colonel Christian Ludwig von Kalckstein sought assistance from neighboring Poland. After the elector's agents had abducted Kalckstein, he was executed in 1672. The Prussian estates' submission to Frederick William followed; in 1673 and 1674 the elector received taxes not granted by the estates and Königsberg received a garrison without the estates' consent.[27] The economic and political weakening of Königsberg strengthened the power of the Junker nobility within Prussia.[28]

Königsberg long remained a centre of Lutheran resistance to Calvinism within Brandenburg-Prussia; Frederick William forced the city to accept Calvinist citizens and property-holders in 1668.[29]

By the act of coronation in Königsberg Castle on 18 January 1701, Frederick William's son, Elector Frederick III, became Frederick I, King in Prussia. The elevation of the Duchy of Prussia to the Kingdom of Prussia was possible because the Hohenzollerns' authority in Prussia was independent of Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. Since "Kingdom of Prussia" was increasingly used to designate all of the Hohenzollern lands, former ducal Prussia became known as the Province of Prussia (1701–1773), with Königsberg as its capital. However, Berlin and Potsdam in Brandenburg were the main residences of the Prussian kings.

The city was wracked by plague and other illnesses from September 1709 to April 1710, losing 9,368 people, or roughly a quarter of its populace.[30] On 13 June 1724, Altstadt, Kneiphof, and Löbenichtamalgamated to formally create the larger city Königsberg. Suburbs that subsequently were annexed to Königsberg include Sackheim, Rossgarten, and Tragheim.[7]

After the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Königsberg became the capital of the province of East Prussia in 1773, which replaced the Province of Prussia in 1773. By 1800 the city was approximately five miles (8.0 km) in circumference and had 60,000 inhabitants, including a military garrison of 7,000, making it one of the most populous German cities of the time.[33]

The extensive Prussian Eastern Railway linked the city to Breslau, Thorn, Insterburg, Eydtkuhnen, Tilsit, and Pillau. In 1860 the railway connecting Berlin with St. Petersburg was completed and increased Königsberg's commerce. Extensive electric tramways were in operation by 1900; and regular steamers plied to Memel, Tapiau and Labiau, Cranz, Tilsit, and Danzig. The completion of a canal to Pillau in 1901 increased the trade of Russian grain in Königsberg, but, like much of eastern Germany, the city's economy was generally in decline.[44] By 1900 the city's population had grown to 188,000, with a 9,000-strong military garrison.[7] By 1914 Königsberg had a population of 246,000;[45]Jews flourished in the culturally pluralistic city.[46]

In 1930s Nazis confiscated Jewish shops and, as in the rest of Germany, a public book burning was organized accompanied by anti-Semitic speeches in May 1933 at the Trommelplatz square. Street names and monuments of Jewish origin were removed, and signs such as "Jews are not welcomed in hotels" started appearing. As part of the statewide "aryanization" of the civil service Jewish academics were thrown out of the university.[47]

In 1932 the local paramilitary SA had already started to terrorise their political opponents. On the night of 31 July 1932 there was a bomb attack on the headquarters of the Social Democrats in Königsberg, the Otto-Braun-House. The Communist politician Gustav Sauf was killed, the executive editor of the Social Democrat "Königsberger Volkszeitung", Otto Wyrgatsch, and the German People's Party politician Max von Bahrfeldt were severely injured. Members of the Reichsbanner were attacked and the local Reichsbanner Chairman of Lötzen, Kurt Kotzan, was murdered on 6 August 1932.[48][49]

On July 1934 Adolf Hitler made a speech in the city, gathering 25,000 supporters[50] In 1933 NSDAP alone received 54% of votes in the city[50] After the Nazis took power in Germany, opposition politicians were persecuted and newspapers were banned. The Otto-Braun-House was requisitioned and became the headquarters of the SA, which used the house to imprison and torture opponents. Walter Schütz, a communist member of the Reichstag was murdered here.[51] Many who would not cooperate with the rulers of Nazi Germany were sent to concentration camps and held prisoner there until their death or liberation.

Prior to the Nazi era, Königsberg was home to a third of East Prussia's 13,000 Jews. Under Nazi rule, the Polish and Jewish minorities were classified as Untermensch and persecuted by the authorities. The city's Jewish population shrank from 3,200 in 1933 to 2,100 in October 1938. The New Synagogue of Königsberg, constructed in 1896, was destroyed during Kristallnacht (9 November 1938); 500 Jews soon fled the city.

In September 1939 with the German invasion against Poland ongoing, the Polish consulate in Königsberg was attacked (which constituted a violation of international law), its workers arrested and sent to concentration camps where several of them died.[54] Polish students at the local university were captured, tortured and finally executed.[54] Other victims included local Polish civilians guillotined for petty violations of Nazi law and regulations such as buying and selling meat.[54]

In September 1944 there were 69,000 slave labourers registered in the city (not counting prisoners of war), with most of them working on the outskirts; within the city itself 15,000 slave labourers were located.[55] All of them were denied freedom of movement, forced to wear "P" sign if Poles, or "Ost" sign if they were from Soviet Union and were watched by special units of Gestapo and Wehrmacht.[55] They were denied basic spiritual and physical needs and food, and suffered from famine and exhaustion.[55] The conditions of the forced labour were described as "tragic", especially Poles and Russians, who were treated harshly by their German overseers. Ordered to paint German ships with toxic paints and chemicals, they were neither given gas-masks nor was there any ventilation in facilities where they worked, in order to speed up the construction of the ships, while the substances evaporated in temperatures as low as 40 Celsius. As a result, there were cases of sudden illness or death during the work.[55]

In 1944, Königsberg suffered heavy damage from British bombing attacks and burned for several days. The historic city centre, especially the original quarters Altstadt, Löbenicht, and Kneiphof, was destroyed, including the cathedral, the castle, all churches of the old city, the old and the new universities, and the old shipping quarters.[56]

Königsberg in ruins after Allied bombings, 1945

Many people fled from Königsberg ahead of the Red Army's advance after October 1944, particularly after word spread of the Soviet atrocities at Nemmersdorf.[57][58] In early 1945, Soviet forces, under the command of the Polish-born Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, besieged the city that Hitler had envisaged as the home for a museum holding all the Germans had 'found in Russia'.[59] In Operation Samland, General Baghramyan's1st Baltic Front, now known as the Samland Group, captured Königsberg in April.[60] Although Hitler had declared Königsberg an "invincible bastion of German spirit", the Soviets captured the city after a three-month-long siege. A temporary German breakout had allowed some of the remaining civilians to escape via train and naval evacuation from the nearby port of Pillau. Königsberg, which had been declared a "fortress" (Festung) by the Germans, was fanatically defended.[61]

On 9 April – one month before the end of the war in Europe – the German military commander of Königsberg, General Otto Lasch, surrendered the remnants of his forces, following the three-month-long siege by the Red Army. For this act, Lasch was condemned to death, in absentia, by Hitler.[62] At the time of the surrender, military and civilian dead in the city were estimated at 42,000, with the Red Army claiming over 90,000 prisoners.[63] Lasch's subterranean command bunker is preserved as a museum in today's Kaliningrad.[64]

Refugees fleeing from Königsberg before the advancing Red Army in 1945

About 120,000 survivors remained in the ruins of the devastated city. These survivors, mainly women, children and the elderly, plus a few others who had returned immediately after the fighting ended, were held as slave labourers until 1949. The vast majority of the German civilians left in Königsberg after 1945 died from disease or deliberate starvation, or in revenge-driven ethnic cleansing.[65] The remaining 20,000 German residents were expelled in 1949–50.[66]

As agreed by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference, northern Prussia, including Königsberg, was annexed by the USSR, which attached it to the Russian SFSR. In 1946, the city's name was changed to Kaliningrad. Northern Prussia remained part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991, and since then has been an exclave of the Russian Federation.

The Jewish community in the city had its origins in the 16th century, with the arrival of the first Jews in 1538. The first synagogue was built in 1756. A second, smaller synagogue which serviced Orthodox Jews was constructed later, eventually becoming the New Synagogue.

The Jewish population of Königsberg in the 18th century was fairly low, although this changed as restrictions[70] became relaxed over the course of the 19th century. In 1756 there were 29 families of "protected Jews" in Königsberg, which increased to 57 by 1789. The total number of Jewish inhabitants was less than 500 in the middle of the 18th century, and around 800 by the end of it, out of a total population of almost 60,000 people.[71]

According to historian Janusz Jasiński, based on estimates obtained from the records of St. Nicholas's Church, during the 1530s Lutheran Poles constituted about one quarter of the city population. This does not include Polish Catholics or Calvinists who did not have centralized places of worship until the 17th century, hence records that far back for these two groups are not available.[71]

Although formally the relationship of these lands with Poland stopped at the end of the 17th century, in practice the Polish element in Königsberg played a significant role for the next century, until the outbreak of World War II.[citation needed] Before the second half of the 19th century many municipal institutions (e.g. courts, magistrates) employed Polish translators, and there was a course in the Polish language at the university.[88] Polish books were issued as well as magazines with the last one being the Kalendarz Staropruski Ewangelicki (Old Prussian Evangelical Calendar) issued between 1866 and 1931.[25]

During the Protestant Reformation the oldest church in Königsberg, St. Nicholas, was opened for non-Germans, especially Lithuanians and Poles.[89] Services for Lithuanians started in 1523, and by the mid-16th century also included ones for Poles.[90] By 1603 it had become a solely Polish-language church as Lithuanian service was moved to St. Elizabeth. In 1880 St. Nicholas was converted to a German-language church; weekly Polish services remained only for Masurians in the Prussian Army, although those were halted in 1901.[91] The church was bombed in 1944, further destroyed in 1945, and the remaining ruins were dismantled after the war in 1950.[92]

Königsberg was the birthplace of the mathematician Christian Goldbach and the writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, as well as the home of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who lived there virtually all his life and rarely travelled more than ten miles (16 km) away from the city.[93] Kant entered the university of Königsberg at age 16 and was appointed to a chair in metaphysics there in 1770 at the age of 46. While working there he published his Critique of Pure Reason (arguing that knowledge arises from the application of innate concepts to sensory experience) and his Metaphysics of Morals which argues that virtue is acquired by the performance of duty for its own sake.[94] In 1736, the mathematician Leonhard Euler used the arrangement of the city's bridges and islands as the basis for the Seven Bridges of Königsberg Problem, which led to the mathematical branches of topology and graph theory. In the 19th century Königsberg was the birthplace of the influential mathematician David Hilbert.

In the Königsstraße (King Street) stood the Academy of Art with a collection of over 400 paintings. About 50 works were by Italian masters; some early Dutch paintings were also to be found there.[95] At the Königstor (King's Gate) stood statues of King Ottakar I of Bohemia, Albert of Prussia, and Frederick I of Prussia. Königsberg had a magnificent Exchange (completed in 1875) with fine views of the harbor from the staircase. Along Bahnhofsstraße ("Station Street") were the offices of the famous Royal Amber Works – Samland was celebrated as the "Amber Coast". There was also an observatory fitted up by the astronomer Friedrich Bessel, a botanical garden, and a zoological museum. The "Physikalisch", near the Heumarkt, contained botanical and anthropological collections and prehistoric antiquities. Two large theatres built during the Wilhelmine era were the Stadt (city) Theatre and the Appollo.

As a consequence of the Protestant Reformation, the 1525 and subsequent Prussian church orders called for providing religious literature in the languages spoken by the recipients.[97] Duke Albrecht thus called in a Danzig (Gdańsk) book printer, Hans Weinreich, who was soon joined by other book printers, to publish Lutheran literature not only in German and (New) Latin, but also in Latvian, Lithuanian, Old Prussian and Polish.[98] The expected audience were inhabitants of the duchy, religious refugees, Lutherans in neighboring Ermland (Warmia), Lithuania, and Poland as well as Lutheran priests from Poland and Lithuania called in by the duke.[97] Königsberg thus became a center of printing German- and other language books:[99] In 1530, the first Polish translation of Luther's Small Catechism was published by Weinrich.[100] In 1545, Weinreich published two Old Prussian editions of the catechism, which are the oldest printed and second-oldest books in that language after the handwritten 14th century "Elbing dictionary".[101] The first Lithuanian-language book, Catechismvsa prasty szadei, makslas skaitima raschta yr giesmes by Martynas Mažvydas, was also printed in Königsberg, published by Weinreich in 1547.[102] Further Polish- and Lithuanian-language religious and non-religious prints followed. One of the first newspapers in Polish language was published in Königsberg in the years 1718-1720 Poczta Królewiecka.[2]

Königsberg was well-known within Germany for its unique regional cuisine. A popular dish from the city was Königsberger Klopse, which is still made today in some specialty restaurants in Kaliningrad and present-day Germany.

The fortifications of Königsberg consist of numerous defensive walls, forts, bastions and other structures. They make up the First and the Second Defensive Belt, built in 1626–1634 and 1843–1859, respectively.[43] The 15 metre-thick First Belt was erected due to Königsberg's vulnerability during the Polish–Swedish wars.[43] The Second Belt was largely constructed on the place of the first one, which was in a bad condition.[43] The new belt included twelve bastions, three ravelins, seven spoil banks and two fortresses, surrounded by water moat.[43] Ten brick gates served as entrances and passages through defensive lines and were equipped with moveable bridges.[43]

^de Zayas, Alfred-Maurice: A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Eastern European Germans 1944–1950, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994

^Michael Wieck: A Childhood Under Hitler and Stalin: Memoirs of a "Certified Jew," University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, ISBN0-299-18544-3, Hans Lehndorff: East Prussian Diary, A Journal of Faith, 1945–1947 London 1963

^Lipinski, Roman (2004). "Individualism and the Sense of Solidarity". In Lienenmann-Perrin, Christine, Vroom, H.M., Michael Weinrich. Contextuality in Reformed Europe: The Mission of the Church in the Transformation of European Culture. Rodopi. p. 245.CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)